1.13. Wrapping Text at a Certain Line Length

1.13.1. Problem

You need to wrap lines in a
string. For example, you want to display text in
<pre>/</pre> tags
but have it stay within a regularly sized browser window.

1.13.2. Solution

Use wordwrap( ):

$s = "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continen
t a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all
men are created equal.";
print "<pre>\n".wordwrap($s)."\n</pre>";
<pre>Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continenta new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition thatall men are created equal.</pre>

1.13.3. Discussion

By default, wordwrap( ) wraps text at 75
characters per line. An optional second argument specifies different
line length:

print wordwrap($s,50);
Four score and seven years ago our fathers broughtforth on this continent a new nation, conceived inliberty and dedicated to the proposition that allmen are created equal.

Other characters besides
"\n" can be used for linebreaks.
For double spacing, use "\n\n":

print wordwrap($s,50,"\n\n");
Four score and seven years ago our fathers broughtforth on this continent a new nation, conceived inliberty and dedicated to the proposition that allmen are created equal.

There is an optional fourth argument to wordwrap(
) that controls the treatment of words that are longer than
the specified line length. If this argument is 1, these words are
wrapped. Otherwise, they span past the specified line length: